Columbine
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: When Harley disappears, she leaves space at the Joker's right hand that's just begging to be filled by a young, pretty, capable woman...the only problem is, Harley's not quite ready to give up her post. *revised*
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Yet another victim of revisionist fever, _Columbine_ has had a minor overhaul. (Would that be an underhaul?) It's sharper than it was the first time around with a few new scenes added and grammatical errors removed.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed it the first time around, with special acknowledgment for Princess Bee, whose review got me thinking about plot holes and how to patch them satisfactiorily and a couple of inconsistencies in characterization. Thanks, babe. Thanks also to Winters Rain, for no particular reason other than being one of the most amazing Joker fangirls I know and, as always, Twinings, who poked me until this story became more than just a throwaway idea I had when I was thirteen. Oh yes, I've lived with this character for nearly a decade. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

_Originally written June-October 2007, revised March 2009._

-

The rain came down in sheets and the wind blew violently, whipping hail at every target that wasn't smart enough to get out of the storm. Car alarms screeched their ear shattering calls into the night, almost drowned out by the howling of the wind and the rain clouds--heavy, leaden, black and pendulous--crackled with electricity and the terrifying sound of thunder echoing through the heavens.

Ah, yet another perfectly picturesque evening in Gotham.

Like most other perfectly picturesque evening in the city, a frenzied brawl was unfolding between Gotham's champion and one of the nastier villains who stalked the streets. Without provocation (not that he ever did anything _with_ provocation--unpredictability was one of his defining character traits) the Joker blew up a high school. As always, his violent demand for attention through the use of high explosives drove Batman into the realm of barely contained rage.

Naturally, this is what the Joker had been aiming for. Nothing gave him that sense of genuine glee quite like yanking old Bats in the Belfrey to the end of his proverbial rope.

For the Joker, this was an elaborate chess game between two masters. All the lives affected by his antics were his pawns, to guard or discard as he saw fit with no more concern for their welfare than that of a man maliciously stepping on cockroaches just because he could.

The game of cat and mouse was growing tiresome for Batman, even if the Joker hadn't exhausted its novelty _just_ yet, and he was fast getting to that point of no return where he would start considering disregarding his self imposed code of ethics.

If it weren't for his near infinite discipline, he would have wrung the Joker's scrawny little neck at _least_ ten times over by now. The sadistic clown was too insane, too dangerous and too unstable to continue the way he had been throughout his career without _someon_e having to find a means of stopping his rampages once and for all.

Really, to wipe him off the face of the earth would have been a service to every living being on the planet.

Yet, even knowing this, Batman still couldn't contemplate murdering the psychotic madman without _something_ finding a means of getting in his way.

Sometimes, it was fate; sometimes it was his own morals and conscience pushing aside the bloodlust enough that he could think straight…

But tonight, neither principles nor divine providence was responsible for the Joker's continued existence.

Tonight, the thing that allowed Joker to keep breathing was Harley Quinn.

Fiercely loyal, head over heels in love and very deluded, she was a woman who walked where angels feared to tread. She toed the line between sane and insane, hopping over it again and again, back and forth, until the entire universe as she saw it was turned quite neatly on its head.

She loved her puddin', was convinced of his love for _her_, and would die to protect him if the occasion called for it.

On this bleak and rainy June evening, the stage was set for her to do just that.

Harley had fought valiantly thus far, taking far more injuries than the Joker did at the hands of the Bat, but in the end it wasn't Batman who was responsible for her taking a dive off a twelve story building.

No, this time her fall was at the hands of her lover, as it had been so many times before and to varying degrees.

The battle between the three costumed beings on the roof of the Ellinstad Hotel had been going on for _quite_ some time, and the only person looking none the worse for wear was the dark knight. Harley's costume was torn at the shoulder and one of her gloves in shreds, but she still continued fighting, heedless of the angry purple bruises that were sure to be forming under her suit with every blow.

The Joker had been relieved of one of his back teeth and was nursing a black eye in addition to a few broken fingers, but he'd allowed Harley to take the brunt of the damage as he always did.

After all, she loved him _so _much…what better way to prove her affection than to be beaten to a bloody pulp for his sake?

She was like the puppy with the big brown eyes that just _begged_ to be kicked when it bounded up to your ankles.

And the Joker had _never_ turned down the opportunity to kick a puppy that was asking for it.

Harley, with her desperate need for affection, approval and support was the personification of the kick-me-puppy.

Joker used and abused her adoration for him one more occasions than he could count--be it through physical violence, emotional damage or letting her take the fall for him--and tonight would be no exception.

She was lovely to have around when she was being useful, but this evening her persistence in keeping him safe was wearing on his nerves.

If she'd just give up and fall off the building already he would have a crystal clear avenue for escape, but _nooo_, she just _had_ to hang in there, leaving him trapped on the roof without any way of distracting the Big Bad Bat so he could get away.

Extraordinarily _irritating._

With his annoyance growing with every insult and punch she threw at Batman, he finally decided he was bored and took matters into his own hands.

Joker grabbed Harley by one arm, spun her in some ghoulish parody of a dance and wrapped his fingers around her tiny throat, crushing her windpipe as he held her over the roof's edge.

The Joker could see that it took Harley several long moments to realize what had just happened, and the look of naked panic written on her features was _absolutely_ scintillating. He did so _love_ when her eyes went wide with an equal mixture of wonder and horror like that…the brilliant blue orbs were so much more exquisite when enhanced by unadulterated fear.

And she made the most charming gurgling noises too.

The Joker paid little mind to the pleading look on Harley's face as her feet dangled, toes desperately trying to find purchase on the empty air.

She even clawed at Joker's hand around her throat, something that she _never_ would have done in her 'right' mind (which was most decidedly the _wrong_ one, by everyone _else's_ standards), but with the blood loss, oxygen deprivation and panic, she couldn't muster enough strength to force him to release her.

The Joker's grin grew monumentous as he held his hapless henchgirl out over the street he spoke a quiet, deadly, "It's not the fall that kills you, it's the stop at the bottom." and then released her.

With his eerie laughter echoing even as Batman dove off the roof to save Harley Quinn, the Joker turned and ran like his coat tails were on fire.

He didn't even look back.


	2. Chapter 2

A month passed.

Two.

Two and a half.

At the three month mark, the Joker was starting to--

Well, he didn't _regret_ what he'd done to Harley Quinn, but he didn't like the fact he didn't have a bed warmer at night anymore…

And how presumptuous of her to just disappear like that after he chucked her off the roof of the Ellinstad! A good, _loyal_ henchgirl would have had the decency to turn up dead or at least badly battered in a hospital somewhere, but noooo, not his Harley girl.

The bitch had to drop off the face of the planet, leaving no trace that she'd ever been there.

Disgusting.

The Joker was brooding in the Iceberg Lounge, nursing his third shot of scotch in as many minutes, growing more and more dour by the moment.

He wanted a woman at his side, damn it! That was part of what helped set him apart from the rest of the villainous population. He had a steady main squeeze. One who'd stand still if he tossed her in front of a train and told her to stay there.

He needed one like that again…he needed--no, he didn't need Harley…

He needed someone better than Harley. Smarter, more trustworthy, and easier to bend to his will.

And if she wasn't too hard on the eyes…well, that'd be good too.

She had to be everything that Harley _wasn't._

"That'll show her," he muttered sourly before knocking back the rest of his drink and sinking down into his chair to sulk. "Humph."

"What was that, Joker old boy?" The Penguin, taking an uncharacteristic interest in one of his patrons as he passed the Joker's table, squawked and settled himself across from the man in purple.

The Joker only had a momentary flash of anger at the intrusion before he decided that if there was someone who could prove useful in this endeavor, it was the Penguin.

"I find myself in need of something," he said in a bored tone, shaking his glass in front of Cobblepot, the ice cubes clinking together against the crystal. "And not just another drink."

The Penguin motioned to one of the cocktail waitresses before turning back to his companion. "And what might _that_ be?"

"I don't suppose _you'd_ know, birdbrain," Joker said nonchalantly, pretending to study his fingernails, heedless of the fact they weren't visible through his gloves as his glass was replaced with a fresh one.

"I know a great _many_ things," Cobblepot said conspiratorially, leaning in a little closer. "What is it? Weapons? Explosives? Exotic chemicals, perhaps? You have but to ask."

"And pay through the nose," Joker tacked on smartly.

Cobblepot raised his own glass. "Man cannot live on bread alone."

"Too _true_…and you know all about that, don't you, my portly friend?" Joker reached out and gave Penguin's rotund belly a pat. "When are you due, anyway?"

The Penguin's smile grew slightly less genuine and his eyes narrowed as he swatted the Joker's hand away. "Let us dispense with the…_pleasantries._ What is it you're after, Joker?"

"A woman," Joker stated bluntly.

"Feeling a bit like a plug without an outlet since Harley's demise?" The Penguin asked, knowing he was treading dangerous ground but not caring after the fat joke.

The Joker let the dig slide. After all, it's not like Harley _meant_ anything to him.

He just grinned, "Something like that. **But** not just _any_ woman will do, you understand. No, I need something _special_."

"_How_ special?" Cobblepot asked, head filling with all the possible sexual scenarios that the Joker had surely been involved with at one time or another. He barely suppressed a shudder at a few of the images that floated to the front of his consciousness.

"Nothing _too_ drastic," Joker replied, grin becoming more ruthless by the second as he reveled in the Penguin's obvious discomfort. "But I would like something on a…permanent basis."

Penguin sat back in his chair. "A replacement for your missing paramour, hm?"

"Replacement? Yes, yes…I suppose that fits. I'd prefer to think of it as trading _up_."

"I might have _just_ the thing for you, my friend," Cobblepot said, clearly pleased with himself. "It just so happens, there's a lovely young thing working here…I let her sing once a week or so. Brings in a rather diverse crowd. Quite an enchanting little nightingale. And as a matter of fact, I've heard she's quite enamored with _you_."

The Joker tried not to look _too_ pleased. "Is that so?"

"Indeed it is," Penguin sipped his drink casually. "She should be working the main room tonight, actually…if you'd like a look at her."

"Right now?"

Penguin nodded before setting his drink down and standing, motioning for the Joker to follow him out into the central part of the lounge.

Once they were out of the private room the Joker had spent most of the evening sulking in, his eyes were filled with a vision on the main stage in black satin.

Dark hair and even darker eyes surveyed the room as bright sea foam colored gloves caressed the microphone stand in front of what was quite possibly one of the most attractive women the Joker had ever seen.

"Columbine Jones," Penguin said quietly. "Popped on the scene a little while back…small town girl, best I can tell."

The Joker ignored the squat man at his side, too caught up in the spell of the songbird onstage, deep voice rolling over every syllable of 'Since I Don't Have You' like liquid night.

"Columbine," Joker said, turning the word over in his mouth and finding that he didn't mind the sound of it all that much.

She was _exquisite. _She simply _oozed_ sex as she drifted off the stage and into the crowd, crooning in that deep, velvet voice of hers. She cast looks over her shoulder at every male in the room as she passed, and he wasn't neglected on her little circuit of the area.

He caught the slight widening of her eyes and the tiny waver in her voice when their gaze locked and held.

She was spellbound to him for a few precious seconds and in those moments, the Joker knew everything he needed to about Columbine Jones.

He had to have her. Like a man had to have air to breathe, the Joker had to have Columbine. _Had_ to.

He would **not** take no for an answer.


	3. Chapter 3

Contrary to popular belief, Harley Quinn had **not** dropped off the face of the planet.

Although, for all intents and purposes, she may as well have.

After the Joker tossed her off the Ellinstad's roof, she awoke to find herself in a strange motel room on the outskirts of Gotham, without any memory of how she'd survived the fall or how she got to the motel.

Furthermore, there was a chunk of about three months of her life just _missing_.

She remembered clearly waking there and being more than a little bit confused when she saw the calendar on the wall proclaiming that it was the middle of May, rather than the end of April, and her disorientation just got worse and worse as she tried to piece together what had happened.

Puddin' had thrown her off a roof.

Puddin' had tried to _kill_ her. And not in that nice "Let me give you a nice new purple necklace, Harley." way that she was used to.

Using what little reasoning ability she still had left, Harley put together as much as she could.

Clearly, she'd wound up in a hospital somewhere, because there were still bandages on various parts of her body--of the paper tape and gauze variety--and given the fact she was in a motel, that meant she must have escaped where ever it was that she had been held.

Given the fact she'd survived a fall off a twelve story building, Harley figured that the reason for her amnesia must've been the horrible injuries she had to recover from.

Maybe she'd been in the hospital, unconscious for all that time? Maybe she just woke up

Yes...yes, that struck a chord inside her. That caused something to flash in her mind. If only she could grab hold of that trace of a memory and force it to the surface...

She shut her eyes and tried to recall.

Hospital. Yes, she _had_ been in a hospital. Not Arkham...not any of the other places she'd ever been before...but it was a hospital.

There was a nurse...she couldn't remember all the details, but...a nurse...a black haired nurse...

A nurse who had leaned over her and happily proclaimed that she was awake.

She'd been in a coma?

She'd struck at the woman in the white uniform with her left hand. That she remembered clearly now. The IV in her arm had made a sharp 'thwum' noise as it tore through the air and connected with the nurse's face. She got out of her bed...she knocked the nurse unconscious with her IV stand...

She traded clothes with the nurse...

And then she ran.

But how did she get _here_? The rest made some kind of sense, but how did she get to the motel?

She didn't like the way things were still so disjointed in her head, but now that she was conscious, it didn't much matter, did it? She had to go find the Joker...he must've been lost without her...

She certainly felt lost without _him_.

Harley got up from her place on the motel room bed and glanced around, trying to spot anything that could be of use. She couldn't very well head out to find the Joker without some kind of plan in place, or weapons, or--

Harley stopped shuffling around the room when her eyes landed on a strip of dark metal, leaning against one of the walls.

A tire iron?

A _bloody_ tire iron?

Why was there a bloody tire iron next to the bedside table? God, what had she done? And to _whom_?

Gingerly, Harley took a few steps towards the piece of metal and she picked it up.

The blood was dried.

Well, whatever she'd done, she did it quite a while ago, so it was hardly worth worrying over...and this _did_ make a nifty little weapon. Best keep it, just in case she'd need it.

Next on the list...

Clothes. She needed clothes.

Harley found that the motel closet was stuffed full of them...

She dropped the tire iron as a memory rose unbidden to the forefront of her mind.

Dear God.

She'd killed the resident of this room, hadn't she? Why else would the closet be full of unfamiliar clothes without a trace of her costume to be found?

That explained the tire iron...

Harley eyed it warily, not really wanting to pick it up again. The evidence might have all been there, but she couldn't believe she'd just...murder someone for their _room_...

She had to get out of here.

She shook her head, trying to force all the muddle to come together into some kind of order that made _sense_.

But it was all so confusing! She couldn't think straight!

Puddin'. She needed Puddin'. He'd know what to do. He'd help her.

She turned bleary eyes on the closet again and tried to force away the thought that these were the clothes of a dead woman.

Ball gowns, cocktail dresses...had she bumped off a socialite?

Coat. There was a long mink coat. Perfect. That would conceal the tire iron well enough.

Harley slunk it off the hanger and slipped inside it to find that it fit rather well before she leaned over and picked up the tire iron, sliding it up inside one of the sleeves while keeping the bottom most part of it still in hand.

Without so much as a backwards glance, she left, intent on returning to the playing card factory where she and the Joker had been holed up before the fight at the Ellinstad.

But when she reached it, the place was abandoned, and looked like it had been for quite a while. There was no indication that it had _ever_ been the lair of the Joker (or any other criminal, for that matter) and disheartened, Harley wandered the street until she found a bus stop bench where she could sit and think.

But she never got the chance to get to that bench...

She passed by an electronics store with televisions set up in the window and made the mistake of glancing at the source of the bluish light that was filtering out onto the sidewalk.

Harley froze in place and her eyes went wide.

Puddin' was on the boob tube.

And Puddin' had a new girl on his arm, looking oh-so-very content.

A new girl that the newscaster called "Columbine".

The electronics store's alarms started wailing as Harley's tire iron smashed through the plate glass window, slamming into the image of this _Columbine_ woman and making the television screen go blank.

There was no way that she'd been replaced...

No way in _hell_.

The whole universe was painted red with the sheer force of Harley's rage as she tore down the street, away from the electronics store and towards the nearest phone booth.

Puddin' had replaced her!

Oh, no, no. He'd tried that _once_; it was bad enough when he got someone to dress in her costume--but to have a whole _new_ henchgirl, one whose costume was modeled on his own purple ensemble, as though she were some kind of _extension_ of him…

Oh! That was taking things too far!

Harley tugged the phone booth door open so hard she nearly yanked her own shoulder out of its socket.

She didn't care. She just lunged at the phonebook and started flicking pages wildly, looking for anything that looked like it might be somewhere that Puddin' would use as a hideout. Since the phone book was almost three years old, Harley knew she'd be likely to find a couple of out-of-business themed joints where the Joker would have holed up in if given the opportunity.

Abraham Ace's Playing Cards. No. Brick's Comedy Club. No.

As she continued her search, she railed on against him in her head. Oh brother was _he_ going to be in the doghouse when she got to him! And that Columbine bitch! The nerve!

Some tiny part of Harley knew she was getting so furiously angry to avoid breaking down in tears due to the ultimate betrayal on the behalf of the man she loved so dearly (or _thought_ she loved so dearly, at any rate) but that tiny part of her was drowned out by the majority of her that was so absolutely **livid** that she wanted to tear him limb from limb for this.

She turned pages faster, so much so that the tiny words were starting to blur together, and her eyes only registered the more colorful, more noticeable pictures and advertisements.

No. No. No. All of these were all wrong! Either they'd already been used as hideouts or she knew they were still up and running in heavily populated (and therefore _patrolled_) areas.

Mephisto's Magical Marvels and Museum of Mysteries.

She paused. Harley wouldn't be able to tell you _why_, but some little voice in her head whispered confidently that this was it and she agreed with its statement. The advertisement--a black domino mask stretched under the lettering--seemed to leap off the page and sear its image into her eyeballs.

That was it. That was the place.

That was where she'd find Puddin' and the impostor henchgirl who'd taken over her post so neatly while she'd been away. She was sure of it.

She ripped the page out of the phonebook and let the rest of the volume hit the floor carelessly as she turned and left the booth, off to seek her quarry and make her pay for what she'd done.

Nobody, but _nobody_ slighted Harley Quinn and got away with it.

---

It took much less time than she thought it would for Harley to reach her destination, though she seemed to be so angry at certain points that she just blocked out her surroundings, moving forward on automatic, and managed to miss seeing certain landmarks as a result.

The missing snatches of time didn't bother her. All that mattered was getting to where she was going and making things right again.

Mephisto's Magical Marvels and Museum of Mysteries was housed inside a brick building in one of the more run-down parts of downtown Gotham, the front doors and windows all boarded up, and Harley quickly made her way around back where she saw something that indicated beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was _somebody's_ new hiding spot.

There were two sentries posted on either side of the alleyway entrance; one large, six foot six at _least_ and wearing battered clothes, and the other, a much smaller man in a smartly tailored suit, complete with spats and pocket watch peeping out of his vest, beneath which was a snowy white shirt which Harley was _sure_ no one in his profession had any right to wear. It was too pure for common hired muscle to wear such a thing.

They reminded her of a mouse and a rat in their difference of appearance and size. Mice were sleek and smaller, rats were larger and scruffier.

But either way, they were still rodents.

Harley approached them confidently, knowing that half the battle was already won. She'd found the Joker's new lair, now all she had to do was get inside it so that she could _talk_ to him.

However, she found her route obstructed by one beefy arm being held up across the doorway.

"You can't come in," the owner of the arm said, staring down at the woman who was less than half his size.

She glared up at him. "Let me through."

"Can't."

"Can't? Oh, I think you _can_," she said impatiently. "Let me through!"

"We been ordered not to let _anybody_ in," the one that resembled a brick wall said in a slow, deep voice. "Includin' _you_."

"Yeah, we like, gotta do what the boss's _new_ girl says," the mousy one said. "And Columbine said that if you was to show up here, we ain't gotta let you in."

"She is **not** his new girl!" Harley screeched indignantly.

"The Boss tells it different," the mousy one replied. "And ain't nobody gonna argue with the _Boss_. Nobody what wants to keep breathin'."

"You **will** let me in!"

"No."

"Look, if we was to let you in, it'd be more than our jobs, see? You oughtta know that, you're a bright broad. He'd have us laid up somewheres with nice big smiles forced on our faces," the mousy one put his forefingers at the corners of his mouth and pulled upwards in a hideous representation of what the Joker toxin would do to his features.

Something inside Harley _snapped_ the same way it had when she buried that tire iron in the image of Columbine and she _snarled_. "You'll let me in or the Joker will be the **least** of your problems!"

The two henchmen glanced at each other. The big one seemed to be looking for confirmation and the little one obliged with a wary jerk of his head.

How the big one moved fast enough to catch Harley across the face with his palm without her seeing it, she didn't know; but she staggered back, stars dancing at the edges of her vision.

She recoiled, stunned for a few seconds before she started _laughing_ and launched herself at the behemoth, dealing blows left and right until he lay unconscious at her feet.

She turned her attention on the mousy one as he drew a switchblade.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I gotta!"

His half hearted warning did little to dissuade Harley as she walked towards him, stepping over his fallen comrade in the process.

"You know why your mother always told you not to hit girls?" She asked savagely before she attacked him, yanking the knife out of the startled man's hands and driving it deep into his chest, causing a red stain to spread across that pristine expanse of shirt he was wearing.

She'd punctured his heart.

He hit the ground on his back, glassy eyes staring upwards but seeing nothing and she looked down at his still form with distaste as she spoke.

"We hit _back_."

With both henchmen either dead or dying at her feet, Harley pushed the door to the Joker's new lair open forcefully.

Inside, it was dark as dark could be, and Harley had to allow herself a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. It took several moments, but squinting, she made out the form of someone sitting behind a desk, feet propped up on the table top, legs daintily crossed at the ankles.

Clearly, this was a female someone…and the only female Harley knew of that kept company with the Joker, other than herself, was Columbine.

"You!" The blonde screeched, swinging a finger to point at the interloper.

"Good evening, Miss Quinn," the shadow replied, reaching out one hand to yank on the chain of the lamp on the desk, casting a yellowish glow over the room.

"Where's the Joker?"

Columbine shrugged lightly before she returned her hand to its former place in her lap. "No idea."

"You're _lying_! I want my puddin' and I want him _now_!"

"Don't tell me you're _still_ hung up on him." Columbine's dark eyes rolled as she let her legs drop from their place on the desk. "Don't you see? You mean nothing to him. The fact he replaced you so easily is proof positive of that."

"That isn't true!"

"Please, Harley, you _know_ it is. All he needs is loyal muscle during the day and a warm body at night. It's all any man wants out of life." Columbine got up and sauntered out from behind the desk as she spoke. "You're a smart woman under all that pancake make-up, you worked at Arkham before you became a patient there, you know the all the ropes of the mind--"

"Listen Lady--"

"It's _Columbine_," the dark haired woman snapped, "Like the nursery rhyme."

"I don't care what your name is, Clownie!" Harley seethed. "You can't take my place!"

"Yes, I can...and I did. You weren't around to fulfill your duties, so I just picked up the slack that you left behind. At your beloved 'puddin's' request, no less." Columbine took two measured steps toward Harley until they stood face to face. "I want nothing more than to use and to _be_ used. It's a mutually satisfying and beneficial relationship. I don't _need_ him the way you do...I'm only here because I _want_ him."

"You don't love him!"

"Love doesn't even enter the picture. It never has. He never loved _you_ and he certainly doesn't love _me_." Columbine smiled bitterly. "That's one of the more crucial differences between you and I: I accept the fact that a monster like him _can't_ love...but you...you stupid little lovesick fool, you delude yourself into believing in the impossible. Don't you understand? He tired of you...tired of your antics and your constant begging for affection."

"But--"

"Make no mistake, he'll get tired of me too. That's just his way...but somehow I think I have a longer shelf life than you ever did."

"I won't let him go!"

"But you already have. Accept it, you weren't built to live this kind of life. You just _weren't_. I **was**. I was born for it, created for the sole purpose of being what I am. You're just not cut out for this, no matter how much you wish it wasn't so. I've waited a long, long time, Harley...waited an _immeasurable_ amount of time for you to get out of the way so that I could take my rightful place at the Joker's side...and now that you have, I'm not going to let you back into the fold."

"You can't do this, I won't let you do this!"

Harley struck, flying at Columbine with fists clenched. She landed one good solid blow to the other woman's stomach, but Columbine matched her strike with deadly accuracy, hitting Harley in the exact same place she'd just been injured.

"Stop it, Harley...just _stop it_. You're only hurting yourself. Give up while you're still ahead." Columbine sounded almost bored when she spoke next, pulling Harley's arm up and twisting it so hard something in her wrist snapped. Harley fought the tears and swallowed the cry that tried to rise in her throat, but something gave her away, causing Columbine to hiss dangerously in her ear. "This is what I'm talking about, Harley. You can't kill me, you don't have it in you. You're a disappointment. _Face it_. Come to terms with it. Embrace it. The sooner you do, the sooner life will get easier for _both_ of us."

The tears finally ripped free from Harley's eyes, slipping down her cheeks and wetting the fabric and greasepaint to be found there. "Let me go, you bitch!"

"Temper, temper."

Harley didn't seem to hear her and she tore her arm away from Columbine so forcefully she dislocated something. "He's my puddin'!" She insisted forcefully, ignoring the tiny sobbing noises she was making between words. "He's my puddin' and he loves me!"

Columbine tsked, shaking her head in disappointment. "You're so naive Harley, and you're _so_ easy to hurt. This is why he needs someone like _me_. I'm not emotional, and I'm not easily injured. I'm everything that you're _not_."

"Why do you want him back, anyways?" The dark haired woman struck again, leaving Harley on her knees with her arms clutched over her tender abdomen. "Aren't you tired of being treated like an appendage and not a person?"

"He loves me!" Harley cried, launching herself at Columbine and knocking her down.

"That's not true and you know it," Columbine spat, fist flying up to meet Harley's jaw where it connected with the bone and made a sickening crunch. "He doesn't love anyone but _himself_."

Harley belted Columbine again and the woman had the audacity to laugh even as her lip split under her rival's attentions.

"You idiot. _Idiot_." Columbine punched her back, sending Harley reeling as she hit the ground, jostling her spinal column in the process. Harley's nemesis dragged herself off the floor, spitting blood from her mouth as she did so. "You don't understand what's going on here, do you?"

A black boot made contact with Harley's side and pain exploded there. "Why can't you just _let_ me take over for you? Life would be so much easier for you if you just let me take over! You'd be saving yourself _so_ much grief! Why do you have to _fight it_?"

Harley grabbed Columbine by the ankle as she drew her foot back to kick her again, throwing the other woman off balance. With a grunt, Columbine was forced to join Harley on the floor, where the blonde pounced on her enemy as vigorously as she could.

"Because I love him!" She shouted angrily as she started tearing at Columbine's clothes and hair, blind fury fueling her when she should have been _thinking_ more about the moves she was making.

Unfortunately for Harley, her adversary _was_ thinking on her feet (so to speak) and Harley didn't see the pipe that Columbine had managed to grasp and pull from its hiding place under the desk until it connected with her skull, quite effectively knocking her silly.

With Harley unconscious, Columbine rolled her body off herself and shoved her aside. "A shame he doesn't share the sentiment."


	4. Chapter 4

When the Joker returned to Mephisto's Magical Marvels and Museum of Mysteries, he found Columbine cleaning herself off and replacing her greasepaint makeup methodically in front of a mirror, pointedly ignoring the cuts and scrapes that graced her features.

Of course, the very first thing he'd noticed when he entered was the two dead henchmen outside (which he hopped over, quite gleefully, as though he was Gene Kelly and they were cheerful little puddles, not quickly stiffening corpses), but it was the person _inside_ that he was more interested in.

"We had a visitor," Columbine stated without ceremony as she finished applying the last of her greasepaint.

"So I _see_," Joker replied, glancing around at the battered furniture and the bloodstains on the floor. "I take it you dispatched them, Collie, my dear?"

"Messily," Columbine answered dutifully, setting the mirror down and standing to face the Joker. "It was Harley."

Amused surprise registered on the Joker's face and he took a predatory step towards Columbine. "And what did she _want_?"

"You, naturally." Columbine placed a hand on the Joker's arm. "I disabused her of any notions that she was welcome here…though I doubt that will deter her."

"She _is _a rather loyal little puppy, isn't she?" The Joker closed his hand over Columbine's in a grip so tight it was painful to the ebony haired woman.

She didn't flinch, wince or otherwise express that he was hurting her and he allowed himself to feel a certain kind of sadistic delight at the fact she wasn't whining the way Harley would have.

"She seems to be under the impression that you love her," Columbine continued, allowing the Joker to pull her to him and looking up at him with a cold kind of calculation in her eyes, rather than adoration. "I told her you don't…"

"Hmmm," the Joker dipped his head to nip at Columbine's collarbone with his shark like teeth. "Good."

"So you _don't_ love her?"

He pulled back to stare at Columbine and he cupped her chin in his hand almost tenderly. "Of _course not_, boopsie. Harley's passe, a thing of the past, obsolete, an anachronism."

SMACK.

Columbine recoiled from the force of the stinging blow without crying out, but her hand remained in the Joker's. "And don't ever question me again."

She licked the blood from the corner of her mouth where he had reopened one of the wounds Harley had inflicted and she stepped back into the Joker's embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Oh, I won't. Wouldn't want to wind up at the pound."

He chuckled deep in his chest and wrapped his arms around her middle possessively. "I'd _hate_ to have to put you down_._"

The Joker's head descended, unaware of the pair of blue eyes that belonged to Harley Quinn, tied, bound and gagged in a shadowy corner of the room, who cried silently as she watched her beloved take solace in the arms, lips--good God, _thighs_--of another woman.

Harley turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut against the amorous display taking place on the desk that her rival had been behind when she first arrived, but she couldn't block out the animalistic grunts and keening cries that accompanied the act itself.

All she could do was try to shrink against the wall and make herself as small as humanly possible as she listened to the noises of the passion that she and the Joker had never indulged in so vigorously…

And when they _had_…well, it hadn't been _mutual_…the few times he'd been more than barely accommodating and actually turned into an _eager_ participant, she walked away very sore with many, many bruises.

Harley winced against the noise. She had hated his more violently zealous attentions, but Columbine seemed to be just _fine_ with it.

Maybe she was right…maybe Harley _wasn't_ the best woman for the job…maybe she _should_ just let Columbine take over…

Harley drew in on herself more, trying to disappear into the wall behind her as she continued to keep her head turned away and her eyes shut…

Yes. Maybe it would be better if she just vanished and let Columbine keep Mister J. happy.

After all…that was her foremost concern…making Mister J. happy.

And he certainly _sounded_ happy.

Agonizing minutes passed and Harley did her best to block out what was going on. She succeeded, for the most part, and sooner than she would have thought, she opened her eyes and found Columbine and the Joker adjusting their clothes back into their proper configurations.

"I have a job for you, Columbine," the Joker said coolly, no trace of tenderness, affection _or_ lust in his tone. "I want you to go see our friend Mister Cobblepot. He'll know what it's about."

"Of course."

He straightened his bolo tie and started for the door, gesturing grandly. "I have another engagement. You know how it is, work, work, work, places to go, people to see, babies to drown. I'll be gone for a few days."

"And if Harley comes back?" Columbine said meaningfully, her eyes flickering to the corner where Harley remained bound.

The Joker didn't seem to notice.

"Shoot her, if you like. Drop her in acid. Feed her to the hyenas," he said pleasantly, opening the door and stepping out into the darkness. "Whatever floats your banana. Toodles!"

The door closed with a click and Columbine immediately turned to face Harley head-on.

"He just gave me permission to kill you," she said ruthlessly, striding forward and pulling the gag out of Harley's mouth.

Harley either didn't hear, comprehend or care and the moment the gag was removed, she screeched, "Puddin'!"

A slap across the face was her reward. "You little _idiot._ Do you _want_ him to come back and kill you himself?"

"He wouldn't!" she cried passionately.

"He dropped you twelve stories and forgot you existed for three months, didn't he?" Columbine replied sternly. "What does he have to do to convince you he doesn't want you anymore? Put a piranha in your panties? Face it, Harls, the better woman won."

"You haven't won," Harley said defiantly. "I'll get back together with my Puddin', you'll see. He'll drop _you_ off a building and guess who'll come cartwheeling back into his life? Yeah, I'll tell you, moi, me, myself and I! Numero uno, baby! You'll be nothin' but yesterday's news! Fish wrapping! Hey, maybe Pengy will let you shine his shoes, huh? I hear he likes fishy things, bein' a penguin and all." She drew in another breath, threw her head back and screamed again. "**PUDDIN**'!"

This time, Columbine didn't bother with an open handed slap, she struck with her closed fist. "Listen up, toots--"

She drew back again and belted Harley again. "_I'm_ in charge here--"

Stars swam before Harley's eyes as Columbine hit her once more. "And if I have to put you in another coma, no dippy blonde with delusions of grandeur--"

Blackness started encroaching on Harley's vision and one more strike sent her over the edge, back into darkness.

The last thing she heard, before unconsciousness claimed her fully once again was Columbine's voice, lowered to a deadly whisper: "Is going to stop me from doing what I've gotta do."


	5. Chapter 5

Oswald Cobblepot was a dealer in secrets. He was the sort of man who liked having his finger on the pulse and his sharp little nose in everyone else's business. Not because he was naturally nosey, but because it was useful to know things about people who could prove to be a danger to you. If you keep a blackmail file on every one of your more deadly acquaintances, they're more likely to leave you alone--knowing that any move against you will come back to bite them in the ass.

Now, when Columbine Jones was nothing more than a wannabe torch singer who waitressed for him on the nights she wasn't onstage, he didn't care in the least where she was from or what her past was like. She wasn't a major enough player to garner much interest from the birdlike man, other than a brief appreciation for her looks and rather attractive figure, so he left well enough alone.

The moment she took up being the Joker's new love interest (if you could call it that), she became someone that the Penguin _knew_ he would need blackmail material on. _Now_ she was a VIP in Gotham's underworld, due solely to her involvement with the Clown Prince of Crime, so a little bit of insurance was definitely in order.

What the Penguin found when he started poking around in Columbine's past was _very_ interesting, to say the least.

For example, just for starters, she didn't _have_ a past. According to every record he could find, there was no Columbine Jones registered _anywhere_.

Cobblepot dug deeper. After all, it was possible she had changed her name…it wasn't all that often that people named their children things like 'Columbine', and it did smack of being more of a stage name sort of thing…

Still, he found nothing that eluded to the fact that Columbine Jones had ever existed prior to her arrival at the Iceberg a few scant months earlier.

He called in a few of his private detective acquaintances and set them on the trail, but they too could find no record of her beyond a handful of months.

Oswald knew he was no Edward Nygma, to be sure, but he still didn't like having puzzles like this lying around in front of him without any feasible solution in sight. He spent several weeks pondering on the clues before him, feeling like the answer to this particular mystery was staring him in the face--if only he could _see_ it--before the truth finally dawned on him.

It was, quite possibly, one of the better skeletons in the closet he'd come across in recent years. Really, once he'd worked out the times, dates, names and places--the similarities and the differences that had been noted by his little brood of private eyes--it all seemed to be incredibly obvious.

Being who he was, Oswald couldn't keep the information to himself for very long. He knew he'd have to lord his knowledge over the woman who called herself Columbine, and when she arrived late one night, asking for a favor on behalf of the Joker (a fresh batch of chemicals whose names don't bear mentioning at this point), he conducted business as usual throughout the little transaction right up until the very end.

She was about to leave, but he stopped her by placing an all too friendly hand on her arm.

"Columbine, my dear, I believe we have something we need to discuss before you go disappearing into the night once more."

His eyes glinted with barely contained mirth over a joke he only knew the punch line to, and she stopped in her tracks, turning to face him suspiciously.

"The Joker is waiting."

"I know, and our purple clad friend can be quite impatient," he replied easily, releasing her arm. "But I promise not to take up much of your time."

Columbine's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. "Get on with it then."

He leaned forward conspiratorially, as though he were going to share a juicy piece of gossip with a dear friend, rather than blackmail her with it.

His voice was barely a whisper and his smirk was irrepressible. "I know who you really are."

Her sudden, sharp bark of laughter startled him, as did the shark-like grin that accompanied it. "I highly _doubt_ it, my rolly-poly friend."

"I _do_," he stated confidently.

"Impossible," she said with a dismissive flip of her hand. "I've been too careful for someone like _you_ to figure it out."

"The impossible is only impossible to those who don't know what to look for," he replied assertively. "I know who you are under all that makeup and beneath the rest of your 'costume'. Tell me, Columbine…has the Joker ever _noticed_ any of the little idiosyncrasies that you share with--WAUGH!"

She suddenly had him by the throat and slammed him against the nearest wall, her brown eyes blazing. "Forget it. Forget it _all_, Penguin. If one _word_ about my identity leaves those slimy little lips of yours, I **will** kill you, consequences be damned!"

The look that passed over her face was one of the most unsettling that he'd ever seen. "Have I made myself _crystal clear_?"

"Swarovski."


	6. Chapter 6

Days passed. Weeks melting into months and day by day, things got more and more difficult for the woman known as Columbine. Harley Quinn hadn't given up her crusade to try and regain her favor with the Joker and it took all of Columbine's strength to keep the little bimbo shut out and away from the clown prince of crime. Harley was nothing if not persistent.

Yet, Harley was the least of Columbine's problems. At least each time she faced off with her rival, said rival retreated for a decent length of time, but the prying eyes of Gotham would not let up. It was getting harder and harder to keep her identity a secret. It was bad enough when Oswald Cobblepot figured out who she _really_ was beneath the mask and behind the make-up, but when Edward Nygma approached her late one evening in the Iceberg, she knew:

Soon she would have to make her move if she wanted to preserve her identity, whether she was adequately prepared or not.

The thing you had to know about Edward Nygma was that the Riddler, if he found out a secret, had a very hard time keeping it to himself. He enjoyed lording information that he and only he had over the heads of his intellectual inferiors.

(And they were _all_ intellectual inferiors, in his eyes.)

Columbine couldn't fathom why the Riddler had taken such a keen interest in her whenever she showed up at the Iceberg until that fateful night when he finally took a break from just _watching_ her as she crossed the room and intruded on her in one of the private rooms that the Penguin kept open for business dealings and other unsavory urges that his patrons liked to indulge in private.

She was waiting on a chemical supplier, as per usual. The Joker had been sending her out for this sort of thing more and more often; while he made plans, she did his dirty work. She didn't have a problem with grunt work, really…whatever kept her close enough to her goal to reach it, she would do it.

She _did_ have a problem with the fact that the Riddler strolled into the little room as if he owned the joint and seated himself directly across from her as though he'd been personally invited for tea.

"May I?" He asked, despite the fact he was already seated.

Columbine glared at him. "I drink alone."

The left side of his upper lip twitched upwards into a smirk. "You shouldn't...it's an unhealthy habit."

"So is trusting villains." Columbine downed the shot of whiskey that she'd been contemplating drinking and swallowed harshly, trying not to cough. "I think you should leave."

He leaned forward, his gloved hands covering the handle of his cane the way a king might hold his scepter. "_I_ think we should talk."

She glowered at his impertinence. "I disagree."

The smirk didn't change at the amount of heat she poured into her glare. "That's your misfortune."

Columbine's jaw clenched and then relaxed. He wanted to play games? Fine.

"What do you want, Riddler?"

"Call me Edward…I'm on first name terms with _you,_ after all."

"Only because I don't _have_ an alias to use as an alternative, _Riddler_." She colored the words with as much disgust as she could muster.

He remained unaffected. "Don't you? I think you might be selling yourself short."

Columbine exhaled in exasperation. "And _I_ think you may be a few chickens short of a coop."

The smirk gave way to a smug grin. "I know who you are."

"I'm thrilled for you."

"I _must_ say I am impressed."

"I've impressed the Riddler...truly, my life's ambitions have been realized." Columbine's answers were coming out short and clipped now that he was prodding a very delicate subject and her temper was fast on its way to boiling over. "Now that you're done expressing your admiration, I'd appreciate it if you'd get to the point."

He ignored her and sat back in his chair somewhat heavily, making it creak, letting his cane lean against the edge of the table and putting his hands behind his head. "You know, I didn't realize at first...took me a few weeks...but once you appeared at his side, and I saw you in action, it became so painfully obvious all of the pieces seemed to fall into place. You, my dear, are a fascinating puzzle of a woman."

"Thank you," she bit out. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Good, because I meant it as one." He looked perfectly at ease…like he wasn't the least bit worried about the woman he was sitting across from who was eying him like a black widow might eyeball a particularly juicy fly. "I believe you have something planned?"

Her eyes went wide in feigned innocence. "Do I? And what might that be?"

Nygma winked at her. "You intend to kill the Joker."

Columbine's lips pressed together into a grim line. "And whatever gave you _that_ idea?"

"Several things...several clues, if you will. Not the least of which is your true identity," he said, the smirk returning in full force, "Which I would think the Joker would be smart enough to pick up on, since _I_ did…but there again, we can't all be _me_."

"Thankfully not."

Nygma chuckled. "I like the nursery rhyme touch. Gives it a certain...riddling edge. It's almost as if you _wanted_ someone to figure it out. It is rather…blatant…the connections."

Columbine's hands curled into fists on the table. The Penguin hadn't been nearly this smug, nor had he actually hinted at _what_ he knew…yet the Riddler was laying it bare for her without actually saying the _words_.

He knew. Damn, he _really_ knew.

Anger drained away in favor of naked panic. "Are you going to turn me in?"

"_Me_? Good God, _no_. Why would I want to cause trouble for you?"

"Why would you approach me about who I am if not for blackmail purposes?"

Nygma tapped the side of his nose with one finger. "Curiosity."

"I hear it killed the cat, Riddler. You might want to avoid engaging in such a dangerous activity as indulging your _curiosity_."

"No, I don't think I do. You answer my questions _truthfully_ and I'll keep quiet about what I know…but if you don't, then I'll go talk to your paramour."

"You wouldn't _dare_."

"Wouldn't I? Come now, you _know_ I would. I'm _just_ unscrupulous enough to do it." He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it slightly. "Now…are you going to answer my questions?"

"Fine," she replied sourly, crossing her arms over her chest. "But remember Pandora, Nygma."

The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. "Now we're up to last names. Progress."

"Just get the interrogation over with."

Another chuckle bubbled up and he didn't even bother trying to conceal it. "At first I wondered why the Joker would choose someone so radically different from Harley, when he had chosen someone so similar to her in the past...and then I realized: You are the antithesis of everything Harley stands for. Your banter with me now is concrete proof of the theory.

She's weak, you're strong, she's submissive, you're dominant. You've even gone out of your way to make certain you _look _different from her. Her hair blonde, yours common brunette. Her eyes azure, yours a...muddy brown."

Columbine snorted. "You're lousy at giving girls compliments, Nygma--and the hair is _black_."

"Common still."

The woman across from the Riddler seethed but kept a rein on her tongue. "Did you have a question, or _just_ insults?"

"I've heard about Harley wandering the streets at…odd intervals. Barley recognizable, from what I gather." He grew thoughtful "Have you faced her?"

She stiffened. "Several times."

"And? Does she know what I do?"

Columbine shook her head. "She doesn't realize. She's too blinded by her own anger and envy to realize. She's…she _could_ be smart enough to figure it out but she doesn't understand. Or she refuses to comprehend…on some level she _must_ know."

"On some level, yes." Nygma sniffed. "Is she fighting you?"

"Is she _ever._ She refuses to let me have control over the situation…refuses to relinquish her place with the Joker, even if it's better for her to be away from him."

"Well, she always was loyal, if a bit foolish."

"If. _If_. There is no 'if'. She _is_ a fool. A lovesick, idiotic _fool_."

"And you're not." Nygma's posture changed suddenly as he snapped up his cane and gestured with it in Columbine's direction. "Riddle me this! Why is a woman in love like a welder?"

Columbine barely contained the impulse to roll her eyes. It would just figure he couldn't put the persona away for an entire conversation.

"_Well_?"

"Because she carries a torch."

"Very _good..._and yet, you carry no torch. Not of love, at any rate." He gave her a measuring look. "You've definitely got that same sort of determined fire about you. Revenge perhaps...maybe even pure hatred."

Columbine felt as though he'd just dumped ice down her neck. "Is it _that_ obvious?"

"To someone as observant as I, yes. It's so clear in everything you do, you _loathe_ him. It's also obvious you want him dead..._very_ dead and very soon." Nygma dropped his cane to its former place and adjusted the cuffs of his jacket nonchalantly. "I suggest if you're going to do it, you get it over with before someone else figures it out."

Though she tried, Columbine couldn't contain the sharp bark of laughter that forced its way past her lips. "Advising me in the planning of the murder of a fellow villain? Doesn't that go against some kind of unwritten rogues code?"

"I shant be the one to kill him. It would merely be negligence to inform him of his impending demise on my part. Criminally negligent homicide would be the technical term for it, I believe."

Columbine laughed again, a bitter sound without any joy. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Nygma."

"Who ever said I'd have trouble sleeping?"

"You mean to tell me you _want_ him dead?"

"Who doesn't? He's a loose cannon. He's a danger to those of us who actually take our 'jobs' in Gotham seriously. To him, it's all an elaborate game--one that he intends to win, no matter how many of us he takes down with him. Personally, I'm tired of being nothing more than an expendable pawn in his little chess match with the Bat."

"He dies, you figure you move up the ladder?" This time Columbine's laughter was genuine. "Please, you'd _still_ be a second rate villain. Maybe Two-Face--"

"Yes and you know an awful lot about that, don't you? Being two faced, I mean," He snapped at her, reminding her not so subtly that he was still the one holding all the cards in this equation. "You're as much of an expert on the subject as Dent, I should think."

Columbine sat up a little straighter, regretting overstepping her bounds and inadvertently trampling on the toes of Nygma's immense ego. "You've made your point. No need to harp on the subject, is there?"

"So long as you remember which of us needs her secrets _kept_ if she wants to keep breathing." He cleared his throat. "Provided your ambitious little plan succeeds and you actually walk away with all of your limbs intact--"

"Get to the point, would you, Nygma? I'm a very busy woman."

"Of course you are, you have a homicide to plan."

"Nygma…"

He flipped his hand dismissively. "Fine. _If_ you succeed and _if_ you live and _if_--"

"That's an awful lot of _ifs_."

"It's an iffy situation, surely you realize how many ways anything you have designed could go horribly, horribly awry?"

The rage bubbled over at last and Columbine stood up so abruptly that her chair turned over as she thrust her fists against the tabletop with a BANG. "Certainly I do! I'm no moron, Nygma, remember that you're not dealing with the bubble headed Harley Quinn here! I _have_ planned everything to the tiniest detail and I will not fail!"

He smiled again, a bit more warmly this time. "If you succeed and if you ever find yourself looking for work, I could see my way to--" 

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "To what? Taking pity on me? Allowing me to bask in your presence and work in your gracious employ? I don't think so."

"So you'd debase yourself with the Joker but not with _me_?"

"That's the general gist of it, yeah. Besides, you never took any interest in me _before_."

"I didn't realize your untapped potential. You must remember what you _appeared _to be."

"Hasn't experience taught you by now that appearances can be deceiving?"

This time it was Nygma who lost hold of his temper. "You're smarter than that, don't reduce yourself to tired phrases and outdated axioms. It might just make me change my mind--and you can't afford to have me doing _that_."

Columbine _actually_ bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood as she regained control of her fury.

"_Fine,_" she ground out from between tightly locked teeth. "When the deed is done, I'll _think_ about taking you up on your offer."

"Good." His eyes glittered and he grinned again before he picked up his cane, rested it on one shoulder and started for the door. "You know, you're really quite glorious when you're this irate. It's a shame you weren't always this fiery, or else I might have snapped you up years ago…long before the Joker ever had a chance."

As the door slammed, Columbine barely had enough self restraint left to keep from shouting after him with a few choice four letter words, but as she stood there at the table with her nails digging into her palms and her knuckles white, she knew she had bigger problems than Harley Quinn, the Penguin and the Riddler combined.

Edward Nygma had just forced her schedule to move up several more notches. So many, in fact, that she figured only a few days remained before she'd have to go through with her plan and kill the man she'd attached herself to for so long.

Provided the Riddler could keep his trap shut that long.

Then again, she didn't think he could…maybe it would be better to do it now and just be done with it.

With a deep shuddering breath, Columbine steadied herself and allowed her hands to relax.

That settled it.

Tonight, come hell or high water, the Joker would die.


	7. Chapter 7

Outside the Joker's latest lair, two dead bodies lay in identical pools of gore--just as they had several months before, when Harley Quinn had slain two similar henchmen--but this time, it wasn't the Joker who stepped over the corpses, but a grimly determined Columbine. Unlike her paramour, there was no spring in her step--indeed, she seemed almost hesitant, yet strangely resolute as well. Her eyes were cold--almost to the point of being glassy--as she entered the lair.

Her furrowed brow relaxed, the creases disappearing as her eyes locked on the bright pillar of purple leaning over a drawing table laden with blueprints, scribbling madly on what was sure to be a fresh plan for the downfall of Batman.

Slipping into a cool attitude that was purely superficial, Columbine slunk up behind the Joker and laid one hand on his shoulder affectionately and the other slithered around his waist.

Not surprisingly, he shook her off just as he would have Harley Quinn, going so far as to reach behind himself and shove her back a few feet. "Not _now_. I'm _exceedingly--_"

The Joker barely registered the glint off the tip of the hypodermic needle; and by the time he did, it was already buried in his back.

Columbine pressed the plunger on the needle, filling his bloodstream with the strongest tranquilizer she'd been able to find that wouldn't kill him and smirked as his limp form hit the floor with a thud.

Now the games could begin…

---

The Joker came to three hours later and was _quite_ put out to find himself hog-tied on the floor, lying on his side and facing Columbine. She sat on the make-shift drawing table, sifting through his plans, not paying him any mind whatsoever.

Well, he couldn't have _that_…

"You _bitch_!"

She didn't start; she didn't jump. Columbine simply turned disinterested eyes on her captive as though _just_ remembering he was lying there.

"Oh. You're awake." She hopped down from her perch and dropped onto her knees next to him. Columbine brushed his green curls out of his eyes in a mockery of a caring gesture and smiled at him. "I was worried I might have given you too much."

He glared at her, pouring such heat into his gaze she should have been turned to ash before his eyes and spat, "You'll pay for this, Columbine."

"I doubt it. You won't live long enough to see me pay for anything." She bared her teeth in a grin that wasn't anywhere _near_ disturbing as his own but still unsettling in its own right. "Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this moment? To see you prone before me like a lamb with its head on the chopping block."

His voice trembled with cold fury. "I'll kill you, you know. I'll slit you open and dance in your entrails."

"How romantic." She ran her fingers over his cheek as she spoke. "But we don't have time for anything quite so elaborate, dearest. I mean, I've already wasted _so _much time waiting for you to wake up so I could see your face when I kill you…it's definitely down to crunch time."

He snapped his teeth at her like a hungry piranha and she yanked her hand back.

"Tsk, if you're going to be like that, I'll just slit your throat and have done with it."

"You've gone to too much trouble to keep me alive to do _that_, Collie," he replied with maddeningly clear logic. "_Why_?"

"Why…why am I bent on killing you? Why am I bothering to converse with you beforehand? You'll have to be more specific."

"I've been good to you, Collie, better than you deserve!"

She shrugged. "That may be true, but I have a job to do."

"Someone hired you."

A deep, sharp bark of laughter was his answer. "You still don't understand, do you? Oh you poor foolish man. You poor, poor uninformed _foolish_ man! Nobody _hired_ me…not directly, anyway. I'm doing this on behalf of Harley Quinn. She really _wants_ this, you know."

"Harley would never--"

"Wouldn't she?" Columbine leveled her eyes at him. "Maybe you don't know us both as well as you think you do."

"You're in cahoots!"

"What an _interesting_ way to put it! Tell me, when's the last time you brushed up on your Mother Goose, beloved? Because there's one rhyme in particular--rather rare to find it in its entirety printed anywhere _these_ days--but it mentions two things that are very important to your current situation. Famed Harlequin and Sweet Columbine...and what's more, the rhyme's core message is the art of _transformation_." Columbine gestured grandly. "That's the joke. You're the Joker and you didn't _understand_ the joke. It's the ultimate punch line, really. I am Harley Quinn **and** I am Columbine."

He looked at her with growing comprehension, yet still in shock at the theory surfacing in his mind.

She smirked at him. "Split personalities are _such_ fun, don't you agree?"

The Joker shook himself out of his shocked stupor forcefully. "But you said you'd met her! Fought her!"

"Oh, I _have_!" Columbine tapped her forehead. "In _here_. You'll be proud to know she's been fighting me tooth and nail every step of the way, but I _am_ the stronger of us. She's gotten out a few times and taken the body off on jolly little jaunts about town...disoriented, of course; but I ultimately regained control. For the most part, now we just wage war _inside_...it's almost sad, the way she _thinks_ she's watching things unfold through her own eyes when really she's seeing the world through mine.

"Haven't you ever noticed any similarities between us, Joker? Oh, our attitudes, appearances and voices are different, to be sure...but our--_my_ fighting style remained exactly the same as Harley's--if a bit more disciplined. I share her height, weight, body type...even with my name I threw you a hint and you _still_ didn't get it. It should have been blindingly obvious, even to someone as obsessively self absorbed as _you_."

"How? HOW?! How could you be…be…_her_?!"

"I'm _not_ her. We may share the same body but we are _very_ different entities. Down to my mental marrow I am everything that Harley _isn't_. That's how I was _designed._"

She drew a switchblade and flicked it open.

"The first time you hit her and shredded that little layer of lies that she kept bound about herself like armor, something inside her cracked. Splintered off. A little piece of Harley that was kept separate from the rest of her. That little piece of herself was where she stuffed all the negative emotions and feelings of rejection that you continually subjected her to with your abuse...and when you dropped her off the Ellinstad, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. That _piece_ was finally substantial enough to become something more than scar tissue. It wasn't Harley Quinn who awoke in that hospital room, it was _me_. She couldn't handle waking to a world where her rose tinted vision of you proved to be nothing more than illusion and sleight of hand...she _needed_ me to take over. I'm her coping mechanism, now...and I have _you_ to thank for my emergence from the deepest part of her psyche."

Columbine reached out and forced the Joker onto his back.

"How many times do you think she looked at herself in the mirror without her greasepaint and saw the ugly purple bruises that were left as a testament of your _love_? Do you think _any_ woman can look at that kind of damage and not have some piece of herself that _hates_ the man who did it? The deepest, darkest part that she won't acknowledge--the part that wants nothing more than to see her abuser _dead_?" Columbine laughed, eyes glistening with unshed tears of _mirth_. "I **am** that part! You _made_ me.

"I love irony...and that's what this whole sordid affair is: pure, unadulterated _irony_. Just as the Batman unintentionally created you, you created _me_...and just as you've sworn to be _his_ downfall, I have promised myself that I will be _yours_. But unlike you...I'll succeed."

Inexplicably, the Joker started to cackle. Columbine was stunned into silence, the speech she'd prepared for months forgotten in the space of an instant.

"Oh, you didn't really think I didn't _know_, did you?" he hooted, laughing like it was the greatest joke he'd ever heard. "Oh, Columbine, how _stupid_ do you think I am?"

"You knew?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"Of _course_ I knew, pookie." His gaze went cold, hard and mirthless--completely mismatched with his maniacal grin. "I was just playing along."

"You couldn't have been! I…I was so--"

"Predictable!" he exclaimed musically. "So terribly, terribly predictable!"

"But--"

"But nothing." His smile took on a coldblooded quality. "Oh, ho, so Harley pulled a Harvey Dent and grew another personality--she's a little more screwdle in the noodle than she was to begin with and it's all my fault. Am I supposed to be _surprised_?"

Columbine looked absolutely dismayed.

"It's Gotham, sweetums," he said chillingly, "I was just rolling with the punches."

"You…you couldn't have known. Not really. You wouldn't have let me get close enough to--"

"I just wanted to see how your little game played out," he replied carelessly. "So, here we are. A bit pedestrian, doll. I was expecting something a little more creative than drugging me and tying me up. I'm _disappointed_ in you, I must say, but now that you've had your fun--la dee dah, we're all terribly impressed--I suggest you be a good little girl and untie daddy."

"No." She fixed him with a steely glare. "No, I have a job to do, even if you suspected, that doesn't change anything. I still have to--"

"Untie me!" he roared. "If I'm feeling charitable, I might let you limp away from this."

"I'm going to kill you, Joker," she said with finality.

Anger gave way to smugness and he smirked at her. "And what will you do when _I'm_ gone, hm? Harley can't live without me!"

"You forget, dear heart." Columbine slammed the blade into the Joker's chest, wiping the smirk away. "I'm **not** Harley."


	8. Chapter 8

Inside Arkham Asylum, in one of the rarely used padded cells, the woman who had dubbed herself Columbine Jones sat slumped against one of the walls, staring listlessly at nothing in particular and plucking at her plastic ID bracelet.

The fact that the text on it read 'Harleen Quinzel' did little to brighten her already melancholic mood.

After she had stabbed the Joker, the Batman had made a timely appearance--_too_ timely, if you asked Columbine--and swept in to arrest her and cart her away to Arkham.

The man she had tried to kill was in intensive care, last time she'd heard…and the public was chanting her name for the _near_ successful murder.

She was the first person to come so close to _finally_ ridding Gotham of its clown menace, a celebrity, everywhere the name 'Columbine Jones' was on everyone's lips…

And yet, the medical records labeled her 'Harleen Quinzel'.

Sickening.

When the door to her cell was opened, Columbine didn't bother to look up. The pointy-eared shadow that fell across the wall in front of her was enough to alert her to the identity of her visitor; looking up was an unnecessary expenditure of effort.

"Hello, Batman."

"Quinn."

Her hand stilled its movement on her bracelet. "Jones. My name is Columbine _Jones._"

The shadow remained motionless. "I had hoped to speak with--"

"I know," Columbine cut him off. "But if you want to speak to Harley, you're out of luck. She's not available for conversation."

"Doctor Mackenzie informed me that Harley hasn't surfaced since I brought you in."

Columbine finally glanced up at the Dark Knight and she knew he was taking in her natural appearance, sans brown contact lenses and black hair dye--possibly wondering to himself why he didn't see the resemblance earlier. "If you're worried about whether or not she's still alive, I don't know what exactly to tell you. She's here and yet...she's not. She's still here. I think. I can't be sure. She's been...quiet...since I stabbed him. The last time I actually heard her voice, it was just an anguished scream in the back of my head."

"And now?"

"Now? Now, she's quiet. It's different. Very different...very strange. If there _is_ a shard of her still buried somewhere inside, I haven't a clue where to find it or how to bring it up. So you'll have to settle for speaking to me."

"The Joker is recovering."

The woman on the floor returned her attention to the walls once more. "I'm very happy for him."

"I don't think you are."

"Am I so transparent, Batman? First Cobblepot, then Nygma…now you. You would think I were made of plate glass." She brushed a hand through her hair. "You should have let him die." 

"I couldn't do that."

"The world would have been such a better place if you had just let him die. Why did you save him? He would have been dead in a matter of minutes and then Gotham would have been safer. Better...like it was _before_."

Batman's lips pressed together into a grim line. "It's not your place to decide that."

Her head snapped up and she _glared_ at him. "Whose place is it, then? I'd _love_ to hear you tell me that I had no right to kill him. Of all the people in the world who have a claim on his life, mine is the one that was the most pressing."

"You're not the only person he's hurt, Qu--Jones."

"No, I'm not. I _know_ that. But I was created for the sole purpose of wiping him out of existence. That is my main objective. That is my reason for being." Her face crumpled momentarily before she hardened her expression once more. "You know the irony of all this, Batman? I thought that if I did it, I would return to the nothingness from which I sprang. I thought...she would be glad. After all...that's why I was created. Harley subconsciously _wanted_ to do something...and when I came forward and did it...it shattered her. I suppose that shouldn't really surprise me. I am stronger than she is. I'm that way by design. It should have been logical that she would crumble..."

"You were angry."

Columbine released a breath in a huff. "I wasn't angry. I was vengeful. _Furious._ Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...but a woman scorned hath no logical reasoning capabilities. I should have realized that she wouldn't have been able to handle it…that she would shatter the moment I did it. Leaving me in this body…leaving me in _charge_...leaving me to _know my fate_. Ultimately, the Joker will be my executioner. There's no escaping it."

Batman sounded somewhat surprised. "So you realize you can't go back to him? _Ever_?"

"Of course I do. He'd kill me the moment he saw me." Columbine snapped her fingers. "He liked playing with me fine, he loves his games, but the Joker is the kind of fellow who tends to upset the chess board if he thinks he's not going to win. And I bested him...and that will not stand. If I ever get out of Arkham, he'll find me and he'll kill me, and he won't care who I am. Or who I _was_."

She looked back at the wall. "So yes, I realize Batman...believe me, more than you understand. I realize. I'm trapped in this body...in _charge_ of this body...and death is all but guaranteed."

The smile she graced him with was one of pure bitterness. "What's worse is that there's no chance of me ever getting out of Arkham and hoping to become a legitimate citizen--not even a chance of being put into the witness protection program, since according to all the doctors I _shouldn't_ exist. I'm a symptom of a mental illness, _Harley_ is the one they want to help, they want to _banish_ me; unless she resurfaces to take control, I'm condemned to these four walls for the duration of the rest of my life.

"You know, Batman, before I _became_--back when I was still inconsequential, nothing more than that nagging voice in the back of Harley's head that tried to keep her from doing foolish things and allowing the Joker to walk all over her...before then, I think I envied her. I wanted to be. See. Feel. I wanted emotions that were my own, not echoes and aftershocks of hers. It was selfish and it was stupid...I wanted the outside world--I wanted to be more than a prisoner inside her mind without any way to get out." She shook her head forlornly. "And now that I'm here…I'm _still_ a prisoner without any means of escape."

Batman cleared his throat. "With proper treatment, you _could_ become a productive member of society."

"With proper treatment, _I_ will cease to be…and we both know Harley is incapable of being a productive member of society as long as the Joker is alive."

The cell door was knocked upon suddenly and Columbine jerked her head at it. "Sounds like your time with Arkham's newest patient is over, Batman. Wish I could say it's been a pleasure talking to you…"

Batman turned and started for the door. "I have faith that with proper treatment, you'll make a complete recovery."

"I don't," she said, even as the door slammed shut behind him.

Once alone again, Columbine returned her gaze to the wall--no longer listless and now smiling. "But maybe Nygma's offer still stands."

-

A/N: END!

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, you've been a woderful audience. I'll be here all week, try the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress. Drive safely!

(And, of course, if you liked _Columbine_, check out my other stories in the Batman universe.)


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